The New York Times, "In Britain, second thoughts over antidepressant rules"

          It was Britain's warning to physicians last year not to treat depression in young people with six antidepressant drugs that set off an international debate and gave impetus to U.S. health authorities who made similar recommendations this week, saying the drugs largely failed to treat depression in children and teenagers and led some to become suicidal. The British regulations, which were phased in from June to December 2003, do not ban the other antidepressants outright. While the agency counsels against prescribing them for patients under the age of 18, it leaves the decision to specialists in child psychiatry, who are deemed able to assess whether the antidepressants increase the risk of suicide or self-harm.
          Discussing the SSRIs, Dr. David Healy, a specialist in psychological medicine at the University of Cardiff in Wales, said, "The sales of these drugs are pretty minor in Britain compared to the United States." Indeed, up until the late 1990s, he said, parents and others tended to regard teenage depression as a temporary phase of adolescence. "Parents would not have thought that this was a thing that needed treatment. But we have all had the message handed to us that this does need treatment," he said, blaming drug companies for shifting the prevailing wisdom toward the need for their products. He has called for more unbiased testing.